The Butterfly Effect
by Phoebsfan
Summary: A post ep for The Blue Butterfly.  A butterfly flaps its wings in 1947 and...


The Butterfly Effect

Phoebsfan

Rating: T

Summary: Post Ep for The Blue Butterfly

Disclaimer: I own nothing and no ones._  
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_AN: This baby ficlet started as a little nagging idea that would not go away. While watching The Blue Butterfly I noticed that the Vera and Joe story while played by Castle and Beckett was heavily narrated whether by Joe's journal or by Vera and Joe themselves. Castle's imagination may have supplied the backdrop but most of the actions and words were supplied by other things. And while Joe and Vera almost kissed during these narrations they never actually managed to until the last scene. A scene not in a journal or retold by an actual participant. A scene in which we have another use of that word they are so fond of throwing around. Always. _

_Why does any of this matter? It was still all in someone's head and it doesn't count, right? I don't like to discount anything as being unimportant, and the intentional use of the word always got me thinking. Which led to this. I typically try not to post anything so short unless there is a specific word limit, but felt that there just wasn't anything more to say. _

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><p><strong>"...What happens is of little significance compared with the stories we tell ourselves about what happens. Events matter little, only stories of events affect us."<br>― Rabih Alameddine, The Hakawati **

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><p>She would never admit it, but in the four years they'd been working together he had started to rub off on her. Maybe not in big ways but when he slipped and let her know that he was picturing them as Vera and Joe—she was never going to buy his crack about fate—she couldn't help but picture it as well.<p>

Her mind flooded with images of fancy dresses and a hunk of gems fastened around her neck, him in a trench and fedora. The vision was oddly appealing and slightly sexy. Not that she would ever admit to that—though secretly she wondered what it would take to get him into a fedora, probably not much.

The smoke filled club, with a sultry singer she just knows he's picturing as Lanie. The music vibrating low in the pit of her stomach, buzzing through her veins and lighting fuses in her skin. Just waiting for the right man to touch it and make it sing. Alcohol and money flowing freely. The fear of getting caught.

Sneaking kisses around corners. His hands on her hips. Her fingers in his hair.

It has all the feel of a great movie. A classic. Something timeless.

Not that she'd been giving it all that much thought.

She wondered what he'd do if she showed up at his place in garters with that fake piece fastened around her neck. Again, not that she would—but the thought would find a permanent place in her not so innocent daydreams.

The Butterfly Effect: a butterfly flaps its wings in 1947 and she wants to land in a certain mystery writer's bed. She was unclear on the cause and effect of it all, but she knew that there was something undeniably sexy about the way his mind worked. If there hadn't been a necklace then there wouldn't have been a story. If there wasn't a story then she wouldn't have that telltale warm glow settling below her navel. Like she swallowed his 'I love you' and it burned in her, waiting for his touch.

They really were too much alike in that regard. She didn't doubt for one minute the story he was weaving in his mind ended so innocently. And as they left Vera and Joe she had to wonder exactly how he was ending the story in his head.

If he was inventing the mundane, or if his imagination stopped after the grisly dealings of that dark night. If they kissed and walked off into the night, or if he pictured them slipping into some seedy hotel and finally sliding into each other. Skin slick with sweat and saliva. Her breath warm on his chest as her heart raced, coming down. Too exhausted to speak as he slipped his hand over her naked skin and discovering new ways to make her beg.

Finding themselves in some courthouse with fake names as they vowed forever. A simple dress, and a simple ceremony. A gold band on her finger, worth more to her than all the fancy jewels in the world, simply because he put it there.

Cold winter nights, clinging to each other, her freezing toes against his calf. Giggling as he yelped and pretended to push her away, only to draw her closer in the end. Did he picture her half covered with a sheet on some sultry summer night, her stomach swollen with his child? His eyes full of pride and adoration, so much so that she just wants to reach down and run her hand through his hair. His fingers drawing lazy patterns over her skin as he whispered loving words to their unborn child.

Vera's... Joe's.

Not theirs.

She shook her head to clear the pictures that piled up. Somehow the truth wasn't something she wanted to hear. She didn't want to go back in and have all the answers given to her. It would make the story he was weaving less special. Less personal. Just less.

And it was his story, not hers. She would never imagine them locked in some sinfully delicious embrace. Or use another couple's story to perpetuate her own desires.

She was slipping. She could try and rationalize it however she wanted, but the truth was he was not putting those images in her mind. They were entirely her creation.

But it wasn't the image of Rick Castle pulling the zipper on her silk dress down, or his hand skirting the edge of her stockings that gave it away. It wasn't the way she found herself pretending it was them; somehow losing the reality that it was another couple.

It's the conversation she pictures Vera and Joe having as the car burns in front of them that is the final nail in her coffin of denial.

"_Tell me you love me, Joe."_

"_Always."_

She wonders when she started equating love with that word. When it came to mean more to her than those other words. When did that word become a substitute for the words she still couldn't bring herself to say?

She can't remember. She doesn't know that it matters, really.

And as he smiles at her in an ordinary elevator in a less than noteworthy apartment building, she wishes he'd pull her closer and whisper it in her ear. Promise her always. Seal it with a kiss.

Her barriers are down and she knows she'd follow him to that hotel. Let him practice another kind of butterfly effect as his eyelashes brush her skin, and he fills her with a slightly nervous excitement like butterflies waiting to break free. Let him strip her of her clothes and doubts and give Vera and Joe a run for their money. Blue Butterfly or not, she knows their story could be just as jaw dropping.

He's a master at painting them into different characters and she's sure he has a million other roles for them to play. But tonight as they step outside into the brisk winter air, she loops her arm with his and imagines that she's stealing into the night with the man she loves. The man who would kill for her. Who would lie and cheat and steal for her. The man who didn't care about the money as long as he could stay by her side.

It isn't very hard.

Vera and Joe were wrong, she gets it.

Who needs a Blue Butterfly when they've got this.

"Coffee?" He asks, turning to look at her as she cuddles closer to escape the cold.

"Always." She smiles.

"Always." He agrees with a grin, and she knows he gets it too.

He probably always has.


End file.
